A team of students and faculty representing UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning and School of Engineering took home the gold at the 2015 National Design-Build Student Competition earlier this month, despite being first time contenders.
The competition was held at the Design-Build Conference & Expo from Nov. 2-4 in Denver, Colorado. According to the Design-Build Institute of America’s website, the team of Lobos went on to beat teams from the Universities of Washington and Colorado-Boulder in the final round.
The competition originally started at the regional level with 31 teams representing 26 different schools from across the country.
The contest tested the team’s knowledge and understanding of the concept of design-build by presenting a construction plan for a 46,000-square-foot science building at Pomona College in California. Students were then expected to defend and explain their designs by answering questions in front of judges and a live audience.
The team went by the name JAMM, which was comprised of the initials of the first names of original team members: John Clark, Alexandra Hamada, Mike Pace and Michael Roseborough.
JAMM's student coach Annica Mosow, a senior engineering and construction management double major, said there were multiple factors that made the competition a valuable learning experience.
“It’s just a real life experience...the time crunch and the teamwork, that’s a huge thing, as well as the pressure,” Mosow said. “That’s how it is in the construction industry so you just need to be prepared for that stress that you get.”
Mosow said that she was unsure of what to expect during the competition, but the team kept an optimistic outlook throughout.
“We really wanted to win, so we were like, ‘we’re going to win.’ We had that mindset the whole time,” Mosow said.
AGC Endowed Chair Mark Russell said the competition gives students an opportunity to simulate what it would be like to work with architecture and construction firms, as well as gain a better understanding of the design and construction processes.
“It puts students in a simulated design-build scenario and it evaluates their ability to respond to the various steps that are called out in design-build,” Russell said.
According to the DBIA, the first requirement for all teams interested in the competition was to submit a Request for Qualification, or RFQ, which includes vital information about the team’s plans and approaches for the design-build process, such as potential designs, schedule and cost. The RFQ also measures a team’s general understanding of the design-build process and their ability to work as members of a team.
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Russell said that the initial stages of the competition are extremely high paced, but the team did well under the tight deadlines. He said that the team only had two weeks to put together their RFQ.
“The students were extremely impressive and highly dedicated to be able to respond as they did in such a quick manner,” Russell said.
Out of the 31 teams that submitted a RFQ, UNM was one of only nine regional teams that moved on to the second round of the competition.
Russell said that the RFQ that UNM prepared for the second round was very detailed and received incredibly high ranking scores from the judges.
“Overall, the team just really pulled together and they did a great job at responding to it,” Russell said.
After receiving high scores on their RFP, UNM then became one of only three schools, along with the University of Washington and the University of Colorado-Boulder, to move on to the last stage of the competition, which is where they were forced to explain and defend their designs in front of a live jury and audience.
Kristina Yu, faculty advisor and associate professor with the architecture program at UNM, said that being a first year contender in a competition like this is exciting, yet nerve racking.
“It’s exciting...not knowing the history of the competition and not fully understanding the other competitors and what their skill levels are,” Yu said. “But like I always suspected, our UNM students did an amazing job.”
Yu said there are multiple reasons as to why UNM’s JAMM team did so well in the competition.
“We have a wealth of student talent, ambition and initiative. When faculty is coupled with that kind of student body who are equally ambitious, talented and engaged, you have the opportunity to play upon a full team’s strength,” Yu said. “We have a super dedicated school geared towards success.”
Ryan Lotz is a reporter with the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Lotz_DailyLobo.
